"You Don't Have To Be Crazy To Work Here (But It Helps)"
Title: You Don't Have To Be Crazy To Work Here (But It Helps)
Author: kellifer_fic
Rating: PG (Language)
Category: Crossover, SPN/Gilmore Girls, Sam/Jess Mariano
Word Count: 3,156
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Summary: Sweet Charity fic for heidi8 who asked for a Sam Winchester/Jess Mariano fic set during the Stanford years.
----
It’s his first day at the cool little vintage record and bookstore and fucking Dean Forrester is behind the counter. Jess had thought the job was too good to be true and he was proven right. The owner, Ella, had caught him loitering outside gazing moonily at the help-wanted sign and had made him come in for a coffee. He’d left with a job and now this.
Jess turned, about to flee as manfully as possible because he was pretty sure Dean would flatten him the next time he saw him when the elbow of his jacket was caught in a vice-like grip. “Jess, hon. You’re early and I love you.” He was propelled quickly towards the counter that was swamped with aging hipsters and the tragically cool kind of kids who thought they were the only ones to have discovered Hendrix. Ella jostled him right into Dean and the guy glanced sideways and did…nothing.
He turned back towards his customers, ringing up purchases with a kind of intense precision and thereby totally missing the three girls who were standing at the end of the counter staring at him with doe-eyed adoration. Jess was ignored right up until a stack of books was thrust into his arms and Dean said, “Bag these would ya?”
And just like that, Jess was sure this wasn’t Dean Forrester. From across a crowded store he was a dead-ringer but up close, Jess could see differences. The guy in front of him was lean in a way that Dean never was, angles where Dean was soft. There were scars all over his hands and the part of his forearms Jess could see and even though Dean was in construction last thing Jess knew, he was pretty sure Dean wasn’t that bad at it.
He realized he’d been standing like a dummy with an armload of books for about five minutes too long when the guy, whoever he was, just huffed impatiently and took the books back, digging mismatching plastic bags that had probably been recycled from the various grocers and supermarkets around the neighborhood, out from under the counter and dropped the books in.
The rush ebbed and the guy disappeared into the stacks behind him, sparing a frown for Jess because he’d just been staring the whole time. Ella paused in front of the counter and looked at Jess for a moment. “Cute, huh?” she said, flicking her head in the direction the guy had disappeared and Jess made a face.
“You just startled me,” he snapped, tugging his jacket off and slinging it over the coat rack near the door. “Maybe tell me what I’m supposed to be doing rather than flinging me places.”
Ella just grinned and nodded. “Whole lot of boxes came in during the week. People selling stuff. Go sort out the trash from the treasure, yeah? From the looks of you, you’ve got a good eye.”
Jess, relieved to have a task that sounded right up his alley, headed in the direction Ella was pointing. He heard her chuckling as he retreated and wondered just what exactly he’d gotten himself into.
000
Jess had been outside that fateful first day with a grand total of thirteen dollars to his name. The Help Wanted sign had caught his eye and Ella had caught his affection just as surely. He didn’t want to admit to himself that the reason he’d felt so comfortable around her was because she reminded him of a tiny version of Miss Patty but there it was. Stars Hollow, for all its faults, had been the best home he’d ever had and he’d found himself missing it, just the tiniest bit.
Not that he’d ever admit to that.
A job meant he wouldn’t have to give up the single room he had in his friend Joshua’s apartment, who had been generous but only up to a point, starting to make noises about rent and bills. He didn’t want to be a freeloader and Joshua had backed off when he’d been promised Jess’s first three paychecks, minus enough for food, free and clear.
He needed his own place, but small steps.
Dean it turned out was actually Sam and pretty much kept to himself, which suited Jess just fine. He looked like he belonged in Ella’s, but there was something off to his scruffiness. It wasn’t like it was pretentious, an affected grunge, but more like it just didn’t suit what he should have been. He was nice enough, the few times he’d grunted responses to Jess’s questions and Jess was quite prepared to never actually get to know his co-worker when he’d asked a dumb question and ruined everything.
In a way.
“You ever been to Stars Hollow?” There’d been a lull and Jess and Sam were standing side by side at the percolator, waiting for coffee. Jess was aware that he sucked at small talk, having never mastered the knack after being a monosyllabic teenager and completely overwhelmed by Rory and by extension her mother at the tail end of that. Sam didn’t take his eyes off the coffee pot when he answered.
“I’m not really into clubs.”
Jess blinked at him for a few moments before he realized that if you didn’t know the place, it could sound like some kind of skeezy nightclub. He was about to correct Sam when Sam kind of cleared his throat and said, “But there’s a really great Indian down the block if you want to do that instead?”
Jess realized the misunderstanding went deeper than Sam mistaking his casual query, born of still being a little weirded out by Sam’s resemblance to Forrester. Sam had thought that Jess was asking him out and while… huh. Jess again meant to kind of clear up the whole miscommunication but his traitorous mouth, having other ideas, said, “Sure, yeah. Sounds good.”
Which was how he found himself walking down the street with his hands jammed into his jean pockets, Sam talking his ear off about nothing. It seemed that once Sam got started, he didn’t have an off switch which actually suited Jess fine because he was able to fall back to his default, laconic self. It appeared that all Sam needed was an acknowledging noise every now and again to keep going and Jess found when they reached the hole-in-the-wall restaurant Sam had been leading them to, he was grinning.
Which he just didn’t do.
000
“So, what do you want?”
Jess snorted a little before he realized Sam wasn’t kidding. The guy had just ordered what sounded like half the menu and Jess had assumed, what with knowing the place, Sam was ordering for both of them. Apparently he was wrong and Sam, being a giant, had an appetite to match.
“Is Ella paying you enough to eat like you do?” Jess asked, genuinely liking the way Sam flushed pink and ducked his head as Jess added a few dishes to their already laden order.
“All the bowls are little,” Sam defended, shaping his hands into a round that was supposed to indicate just how tiny but didn’t really work because his hands, like everything else, were massive and he was encompassing a space about the size of Jess’s head.
“Hey, I’m not arguing. I’m not sure I can eat my own bodyweight but I’m always up for a challenge.”
Sam’s flush got deeper but he chuckled when Jess kicked him under the table.
A bowl of bread and popadums came out first, along with their beers and Jess took a long swallow before setting his down and looking across at Sam. It seemed the verbal marathon had dried up again and he would have to kick start it, worse luck. He was about to ask something inane when he noticed the way Sam had absently picked up the knife from his place setting and was twirling it in his fingers. It was nothing but a silver blur.
“You don’t belong here, do you?” Jess asked and Sam seemed to realize what he was doing with a start and slammed the knife down, a little too hard because it skittered off the table and hit the floor.
“What do you mean?” Sam asked, ducking out of sight to reach for the errant cutlery that was instead swept up by one of the waitresses before he could get a hand on it.
“I mean you don’t really… fit,” Jess said. Sam was getting pale and biting his lip but Jess just waved a hand. “I mean, I get it, I really do. I’ve been a square peg in an octagonal hole most of my life.”
Sam relaxed a little, chuffing a laugh and rubbing a hand over the back of his head. “I just did my first year of Stanford,” he said, sounding weirdly bashful about it, like he wasn’t used to bringing it up as a point of pride. Jess found himself interested which surprised him because very few people had ever really made an impression on him.
“Wow, so you got some brains in that humungous skull,” Jess said, nodding and Sam walked his fingers over the top of his head and frowned.
“My head isn’t big,” he said in such a serious tone that Jess thought he’d really offended the guy but then Sam grinned. “Better than having a tiny doll’s head anyway.”
“Oho! Like that is it?” Jess asked, raising his eyebrows.
000
Dating a guy was not without its complications.
For one thing, Jess wasn’t entirely sure it had been a date.
They had chatted and eaten, too much in Jess’s case and apparently not enough in Sam’s, who had proposed ice cream after. Jess hadn’t meant to let the pang of Rory bleed through at Sam’s suggestion but the mood had again switched back to a quiet one and Jess knew he was entirely to blame.
They walked for a while, not really heading anywhere but ended up back near Ella’s which was about halfway between where they were each staying. Sam said, see ya and Jess said later and that was that.
So, confusing.
However, the next day Sam had lost a lot of his intense muteness and instead joked with the customers and smiled which, wow, dimples and Ella kept sneaking knowing looks Jess’s way. He found out Sam’s last name was Winchester and when he said, like the gun, Sam smirked in that way all people did who had names that elicited a standard response.
Jess himself in a small way knew what that was like. When he said Mariano, most people repeated it back to him, Mariano? that made it a question, like that couldn’t possibly be his last name.
It bothered Jess just how much the whole idea of Sam didn’t bother him. It felt right so he was just wondering how he could bring it up with the guy. How he could ask if they’d had a date without looking like some kind of world-class dumbass.
He wanted to do it again. Sam was a whole different person when he was happy and Jess wanted to get to know that guy, a lot. There was goofy hair and too-long limbs and Jess wanted all of it in that kind of knee-jerk way he had when he wanted anything. He didn’t see boundaries and borders like other people, he just believed that if you wanted something, you should do your damndest to get it and other people could go to hell.
It wasn’t exactly the best way to win any popularity contests but Jess had never really been too fussed about that. His Uncle had once accused him of being like a tiny bulldozer with blinkers on and Jess thought that was the most apt description of him anyone had ever come up with.
Luke had really gotten him like no one ever had before.
“Movie tonight?” Sam asked, breaking into Jess’s train of thought and Jess kind of startled into a teetering pile of books, knocking them and himself onto the floor. Sam came and stood over him, not even offering a hand up but instead crossing his arms and grinning. “And Ella calls me a giraffe in a china shop,” Sam tutted.
“It’s a bull in a china shop,” Jess grumbled, pushing books aside so he could get up.
Jess was restacking the books when he remembered Sam had asked him out again and he still wasn’t clear on whether it was a date. He slammed the top book on the pile a little too hard and the whole lot toppled over again. “Clean up on aisle four!” Sam called jovially from the counter.
“I liked you better when you were silent,” Jess snapped back, hunkering down again to start the restack.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Sam said, right by Jess’s ear and he jerked, the two books he was holding flipping out of his grasp when Sam’s large hand brushed over the strip of spine exposed between the top of his jeans and the back of his shirt.
Okay, date then, Jess thought and he was pretty sure what he was feeling was relief.
Maybe.
000
“I thought we were going to see a movie?” Jess was holding a brightly colored flyer that Sam had handed over once they had passed the third movie cinema in a row.
“Dude, it’s ribs and poker, in a bowling alley.”
“Don’t call me dude,” Jess said almost automatically and Sam grimaced and held out his hands in apology. They’d already had the dude conversation and Sam had blamed his brother for the word’s overuse in his vocabulary. It had apparently originated from their father and stuck.
Sam was darting back and forth like an excited puppy and Jess was concentrating very hard on the flyer, just so he wouldn’t have to look up and then admit to himself that Sam was just too damn adorable for his own good. Jess had never found anyone cute in his life and he wasn’t sure how he was starting with a guy over six foot four who was admittedly lean but looked like he was on the knife edge of filling out in the best way possible.
Jess was having such a good time trying not to notice Sam’s exuberance that he almost completely missed a medium built man stepping out of the shadows of an alley. It seemed that Sam didn’t though, because the man had enough time to say, “Gimme your-” when Sam moved.
There was a flurry of blows and the guy was down on the ground, cradling his nose and trying to curl into himself. Sam was standing over him, breathing hard, legs slightly spread and hands balled into loose fists. Jess just blinked at him in amazement and then down at their would-be attacker. Sam kicked something by the man’s hands sideways and back into the alley and Jess belatedly realized when he heard a metallic clatter that it was a knife.
“What the fuck?” Jess breathed and Sam turned, his face settling into the careful blankness Jess remembered from their very first day. “I’m sorry, I…” Sam vaguely gestured at the man, still groaning and then at himself. He shoved his hands into his pockets and seemed to hunch into himself, ducking his head. He spun quickly on his heel and started walking.
Jess was so stunned that he let Sam get almost to the end of the block and around the corner before he moved. He jogged to catch up but when he rounded the same corner he was met with nothing but empty street.
“Sam!” Jess called, fisting hands in the bottom of his t-shirt in frustration.
Sam was gone.
000
Jess didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but the hotel was the wrong kind of seedy. Jess had lived rough but this was a whole new level and he really needed to take a shower after the clerk at the desk had eyed him for a good five minutes before telling him what room Sam was in. He then decided to save a harrowing trip and forgo the elevator that looked like a death trap and instead take the stairs to the fifth floor.
Room five-nineteen had a crack in the bottom of the door and what looked like fingernail scratches of all things right under the number. Sam answered looking sleepy and rumpled and again, out of place. Jess had that weird feeling of displacement once more where Sam certainly looked the part but still shouldn’t have been there.
Sam didn’t resist as Jess pushed his was into the room, seeing it was about as bad as he’d been expecting. There was a single, narrow bed that Sam had to be practically half-off when he was sleeping and a sink with a hot plate plugged in next to it. Jess had passed the bathroom on the way to the room and figured all the rooms on the floor had to share.
“So,” Jess said, finally perching on a small wooden chair with tape holding it together. “I never read a story where a prince saved a damsel in distress and then just ran off.”
“I didn’t run,” Sam grumbled, rubbing at his face tiredly. “I… sauntered. You’ve just got short legs.”
“Nu’uh,” Jess tutted, holding up a finger. “None of that. What the hell just happened?”
“You referred to yourself as a damsel in distress?” Sam hazarded but he was stalling badly and they both knew it. He sighed and sunk onto the corner of the tiny bed. “I just figured I might’ve… freaked you out a little.”
Jess shrugged, a small movement that told a lot. “Nah. Just happy you saved the whole embarrassment of our potential mugger seeing how much money I don't have.”
Sam snorted and looked up, something hopeful on his face. “I got called a lot of names when I was growing up. I was always the new kid, the freak. The one they checked first for switchblades in the books because… well, I don’t know. I always thought if I kept my head down and studied and didn’t do anything then they would see past my crappy clothes and my spotty school record but…” Sam made a helpless gesture with his hands. “I know what I look like. I scare people sometimes and I don’t mean to.”
“What you look like?” Jess huffed, standing up and crossing the space that only required three steps. He ran a hand through Sam’s hair, messing it up a little and Sam looked up at him. “I don’t think you have any idea what you look like,” he said and leaned down, tipping Sam’s chin up with his fingers and taking his lower lip between his teeth.
When he pulled back, Sam was smiling that big goofy grin Jess was, he had to now admit, a little in love with.
Author: kellifer_fic
Rating: PG (Language)
Category: Crossover, SPN/Gilmore Girls, Sam/Jess Mariano
Word Count: 3,156
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Summary: Sweet Charity fic for heidi8 who asked for a Sam Winchester/Jess Mariano fic set during the Stanford years.
----
It’s his first day at the cool little vintage record and bookstore and fucking Dean Forrester is behind the counter. Jess had thought the job was too good to be true and he was proven right. The owner, Ella, had caught him loitering outside gazing moonily at the help-wanted sign and had made him come in for a coffee. He’d left with a job and now this.
Jess turned, about to flee as manfully as possible because he was pretty sure Dean would flatten him the next time he saw him when the elbow of his jacket was caught in a vice-like grip. “Jess, hon. You’re early and I love you.” He was propelled quickly towards the counter that was swamped with aging hipsters and the tragically cool kind of kids who thought they were the only ones to have discovered Hendrix. Ella jostled him right into Dean and the guy glanced sideways and did…nothing.
He turned back towards his customers, ringing up purchases with a kind of intense precision and thereby totally missing the three girls who were standing at the end of the counter staring at him with doe-eyed adoration. Jess was ignored right up until a stack of books was thrust into his arms and Dean said, “Bag these would ya?”
And just like that, Jess was sure this wasn’t Dean Forrester. From across a crowded store he was a dead-ringer but up close, Jess could see differences. The guy in front of him was lean in a way that Dean never was, angles where Dean was soft. There were scars all over his hands and the part of his forearms Jess could see and even though Dean was in construction last thing Jess knew, he was pretty sure Dean wasn’t that bad at it.
He realized he’d been standing like a dummy with an armload of books for about five minutes too long when the guy, whoever he was, just huffed impatiently and took the books back, digging mismatching plastic bags that had probably been recycled from the various grocers and supermarkets around the neighborhood, out from under the counter and dropped the books in.
The rush ebbed and the guy disappeared into the stacks behind him, sparing a frown for Jess because he’d just been staring the whole time. Ella paused in front of the counter and looked at Jess for a moment. “Cute, huh?” she said, flicking her head in the direction the guy had disappeared and Jess made a face.
“You just startled me,” he snapped, tugging his jacket off and slinging it over the coat rack near the door. “Maybe tell me what I’m supposed to be doing rather than flinging me places.”
Ella just grinned and nodded. “Whole lot of boxes came in during the week. People selling stuff. Go sort out the trash from the treasure, yeah? From the looks of you, you’ve got a good eye.”
Jess, relieved to have a task that sounded right up his alley, headed in the direction Ella was pointing. He heard her chuckling as he retreated and wondered just what exactly he’d gotten himself into.
000
Jess had been outside that fateful first day with a grand total of thirteen dollars to his name. The Help Wanted sign had caught his eye and Ella had caught his affection just as surely. He didn’t want to admit to himself that the reason he’d felt so comfortable around her was because she reminded him of a tiny version of Miss Patty but there it was. Stars Hollow, for all its faults, had been the best home he’d ever had and he’d found himself missing it, just the tiniest bit.
Not that he’d ever admit to that.
A job meant he wouldn’t have to give up the single room he had in his friend Joshua’s apartment, who had been generous but only up to a point, starting to make noises about rent and bills. He didn’t want to be a freeloader and Joshua had backed off when he’d been promised Jess’s first three paychecks, minus enough for food, free and clear.
He needed his own place, but small steps.
Dean it turned out was actually Sam and pretty much kept to himself, which suited Jess just fine. He looked like he belonged in Ella’s, but there was something off to his scruffiness. It wasn’t like it was pretentious, an affected grunge, but more like it just didn’t suit what he should have been. He was nice enough, the few times he’d grunted responses to Jess’s questions and Jess was quite prepared to never actually get to know his co-worker when he’d asked a dumb question and ruined everything.
In a way.
“You ever been to Stars Hollow?” There’d been a lull and Jess and Sam were standing side by side at the percolator, waiting for coffee. Jess was aware that he sucked at small talk, having never mastered the knack after being a monosyllabic teenager and completely overwhelmed by Rory and by extension her mother at the tail end of that. Sam didn’t take his eyes off the coffee pot when he answered.
“I’m not really into clubs.”
Jess blinked at him for a few moments before he realized that if you didn’t know the place, it could sound like some kind of skeezy nightclub. He was about to correct Sam when Sam kind of cleared his throat and said, “But there’s a really great Indian down the block if you want to do that instead?”
Jess realized the misunderstanding went deeper than Sam mistaking his casual query, born of still being a little weirded out by Sam’s resemblance to Forrester. Sam had thought that Jess was asking him out and while… huh. Jess again meant to kind of clear up the whole miscommunication but his traitorous mouth, having other ideas, said, “Sure, yeah. Sounds good.”
Which was how he found himself walking down the street with his hands jammed into his jean pockets, Sam talking his ear off about nothing. It seemed that once Sam got started, he didn’t have an off switch which actually suited Jess fine because he was able to fall back to his default, laconic self. It appeared that all Sam needed was an acknowledging noise every now and again to keep going and Jess found when they reached the hole-in-the-wall restaurant Sam had been leading them to, he was grinning.
Which he just didn’t do.
000
“So, what do you want?”
Jess snorted a little before he realized Sam wasn’t kidding. The guy had just ordered what sounded like half the menu and Jess had assumed, what with knowing the place, Sam was ordering for both of them. Apparently he was wrong and Sam, being a giant, had an appetite to match.
“Is Ella paying you enough to eat like you do?” Jess asked, genuinely liking the way Sam flushed pink and ducked his head as Jess added a few dishes to their already laden order.
“All the bowls are little,” Sam defended, shaping his hands into a round that was supposed to indicate just how tiny but didn’t really work because his hands, like everything else, were massive and he was encompassing a space about the size of Jess’s head.
“Hey, I’m not arguing. I’m not sure I can eat my own bodyweight but I’m always up for a challenge.”
Sam’s flush got deeper but he chuckled when Jess kicked him under the table.
A bowl of bread and popadums came out first, along with their beers and Jess took a long swallow before setting his down and looking across at Sam. It seemed the verbal marathon had dried up again and he would have to kick start it, worse luck. He was about to ask something inane when he noticed the way Sam had absently picked up the knife from his place setting and was twirling it in his fingers. It was nothing but a silver blur.
“You don’t belong here, do you?” Jess asked and Sam seemed to realize what he was doing with a start and slammed the knife down, a little too hard because it skittered off the table and hit the floor.
“What do you mean?” Sam asked, ducking out of sight to reach for the errant cutlery that was instead swept up by one of the waitresses before he could get a hand on it.
“I mean you don’t really… fit,” Jess said. Sam was getting pale and biting his lip but Jess just waved a hand. “I mean, I get it, I really do. I’ve been a square peg in an octagonal hole most of my life.”
Sam relaxed a little, chuffing a laugh and rubbing a hand over the back of his head. “I just did my first year of Stanford,” he said, sounding weirdly bashful about it, like he wasn’t used to bringing it up as a point of pride. Jess found himself interested which surprised him because very few people had ever really made an impression on him.
“Wow, so you got some brains in that humungous skull,” Jess said, nodding and Sam walked his fingers over the top of his head and frowned.
“My head isn’t big,” he said in such a serious tone that Jess thought he’d really offended the guy but then Sam grinned. “Better than having a tiny doll’s head anyway.”
“Oho! Like that is it?” Jess asked, raising his eyebrows.
000
Dating a guy was not without its complications.
For one thing, Jess wasn’t entirely sure it had been a date.
They had chatted and eaten, too much in Jess’s case and apparently not enough in Sam’s, who had proposed ice cream after. Jess hadn’t meant to let the pang of Rory bleed through at Sam’s suggestion but the mood had again switched back to a quiet one and Jess knew he was entirely to blame.
They walked for a while, not really heading anywhere but ended up back near Ella’s which was about halfway between where they were each staying. Sam said, see ya and Jess said later and that was that.
So, confusing.
However, the next day Sam had lost a lot of his intense muteness and instead joked with the customers and smiled which, wow, dimples and Ella kept sneaking knowing looks Jess’s way. He found out Sam’s last name was Winchester and when he said, like the gun, Sam smirked in that way all people did who had names that elicited a standard response.
Jess himself in a small way knew what that was like. When he said Mariano, most people repeated it back to him, Mariano? that made it a question, like that couldn’t possibly be his last name.
It bothered Jess just how much the whole idea of Sam didn’t bother him. It felt right so he was just wondering how he could bring it up with the guy. How he could ask if they’d had a date without looking like some kind of world-class dumbass.
He wanted to do it again. Sam was a whole different person when he was happy and Jess wanted to get to know that guy, a lot. There was goofy hair and too-long limbs and Jess wanted all of it in that kind of knee-jerk way he had when he wanted anything. He didn’t see boundaries and borders like other people, he just believed that if you wanted something, you should do your damndest to get it and other people could go to hell.
It wasn’t exactly the best way to win any popularity contests but Jess had never really been too fussed about that. His Uncle had once accused him of being like a tiny bulldozer with blinkers on and Jess thought that was the most apt description of him anyone had ever come up with.
Luke had really gotten him like no one ever had before.
“Movie tonight?” Sam asked, breaking into Jess’s train of thought and Jess kind of startled into a teetering pile of books, knocking them and himself onto the floor. Sam came and stood over him, not even offering a hand up but instead crossing his arms and grinning. “And Ella calls me a giraffe in a china shop,” Sam tutted.
“It’s a bull in a china shop,” Jess grumbled, pushing books aside so he could get up.
Jess was restacking the books when he remembered Sam had asked him out again and he still wasn’t clear on whether it was a date. He slammed the top book on the pile a little too hard and the whole lot toppled over again. “Clean up on aisle four!” Sam called jovially from the counter.
“I liked you better when you were silent,” Jess snapped back, hunkering down again to start the restack.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Sam said, right by Jess’s ear and he jerked, the two books he was holding flipping out of his grasp when Sam’s large hand brushed over the strip of spine exposed between the top of his jeans and the back of his shirt.
Okay, date then, Jess thought and he was pretty sure what he was feeling was relief.
Maybe.
000
“I thought we were going to see a movie?” Jess was holding a brightly colored flyer that Sam had handed over once they had passed the third movie cinema in a row.
“Dude, it’s ribs and poker, in a bowling alley.”
“Don’t call me dude,” Jess said almost automatically and Sam grimaced and held out his hands in apology. They’d already had the dude conversation and Sam had blamed his brother for the word’s overuse in his vocabulary. It had apparently originated from their father and stuck.
Sam was darting back and forth like an excited puppy and Jess was concentrating very hard on the flyer, just so he wouldn’t have to look up and then admit to himself that Sam was just too damn adorable for his own good. Jess had never found anyone cute in his life and he wasn’t sure how he was starting with a guy over six foot four who was admittedly lean but looked like he was on the knife edge of filling out in the best way possible.
Jess was having such a good time trying not to notice Sam’s exuberance that he almost completely missed a medium built man stepping out of the shadows of an alley. It seemed that Sam didn’t though, because the man had enough time to say, “Gimme your-” when Sam moved.
There was a flurry of blows and the guy was down on the ground, cradling his nose and trying to curl into himself. Sam was standing over him, breathing hard, legs slightly spread and hands balled into loose fists. Jess just blinked at him in amazement and then down at their would-be attacker. Sam kicked something by the man’s hands sideways and back into the alley and Jess belatedly realized when he heard a metallic clatter that it was a knife.
“What the fuck?” Jess breathed and Sam turned, his face settling into the careful blankness Jess remembered from their very first day. “I’m sorry, I…” Sam vaguely gestured at the man, still groaning and then at himself. He shoved his hands into his pockets and seemed to hunch into himself, ducking his head. He spun quickly on his heel and started walking.
Jess was so stunned that he let Sam get almost to the end of the block and around the corner before he moved. He jogged to catch up but when he rounded the same corner he was met with nothing but empty street.
“Sam!” Jess called, fisting hands in the bottom of his t-shirt in frustration.
Sam was gone.
000
Jess didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but the hotel was the wrong kind of seedy. Jess had lived rough but this was a whole new level and he really needed to take a shower after the clerk at the desk had eyed him for a good five minutes before telling him what room Sam was in. He then decided to save a harrowing trip and forgo the elevator that looked like a death trap and instead take the stairs to the fifth floor.
Room five-nineteen had a crack in the bottom of the door and what looked like fingernail scratches of all things right under the number. Sam answered looking sleepy and rumpled and again, out of place. Jess had that weird feeling of displacement once more where Sam certainly looked the part but still shouldn’t have been there.
Sam didn’t resist as Jess pushed his was into the room, seeing it was about as bad as he’d been expecting. There was a single, narrow bed that Sam had to be practically half-off when he was sleeping and a sink with a hot plate plugged in next to it. Jess had passed the bathroom on the way to the room and figured all the rooms on the floor had to share.
“So,” Jess said, finally perching on a small wooden chair with tape holding it together. “I never read a story where a prince saved a damsel in distress and then just ran off.”
“I didn’t run,” Sam grumbled, rubbing at his face tiredly. “I… sauntered. You’ve just got short legs.”
“Nu’uh,” Jess tutted, holding up a finger. “None of that. What the hell just happened?”
“You referred to yourself as a damsel in distress?” Sam hazarded but he was stalling badly and they both knew it. He sighed and sunk onto the corner of the tiny bed. “I just figured I might’ve… freaked you out a little.”
Jess shrugged, a small movement that told a lot. “Nah. Just happy you saved the whole embarrassment of our potential mugger seeing how much money I don't have.”
Sam snorted and looked up, something hopeful on his face. “I got called a lot of names when I was growing up. I was always the new kid, the freak. The one they checked first for switchblades in the books because… well, I don’t know. I always thought if I kept my head down and studied and didn’t do anything then they would see past my crappy clothes and my spotty school record but…” Sam made a helpless gesture with his hands. “I know what I look like. I scare people sometimes and I don’t mean to.”
“What you look like?” Jess huffed, standing up and crossing the space that only required three steps. He ran a hand through Sam’s hair, messing it up a little and Sam looked up at him. “I don’t think you have any idea what you look like,” he said and leaned down, tipping Sam’s chin up with his fingers and taking his lower lip between his teeth.
When he pulled back, Sam was smiling that big goofy grin Jess was, he had to now admit, a little in love with.